


The Engine

by stitchy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Post HLV, Science Fiction, Surprisingly Canon Compliant, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after the events of His Last Vow, Sherlock has an opportunity to revisit the night of A Study in Pink and get some perspective on the destiny of he and John's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Engine

**Author's Note:**

> The method of time travel used is directly lifted from Warehouse 13, with the assumption that after its final canon use in W13, it is damaged and sent back to the UK, where it was originally made.
> 
> Quotes from from ASiP are gratefully referenced from[Ariane DeVere's transcript](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/43794.html).

When Sherlock received a summons from Mycroft to come and extend his expertise on an artifact, this was not what he'd had in mind. Sherlock had never been in this wing of the complex before, but it was the same place that once held Moriarty and later himself following the Magnussen shooting. A place dangerous secrets are stored, until the government finds a way they think they can profit off them, he thinks privately. The brothers were now standing before a series of antiquated yet fantastical mechanisms, focused around a chair. Tubes and wire strung the gathering of plinths to the chair in what to Sherlock’s best guess might be an early, wildly over complicated lie-detector.

“The government can afford more up-to-date technology, can't it? What do I do my taxes for?” Sherlock mocks.

“John does your taxes,” Mycroft reminds him. “ And believe me, this is technology far beyond the ability of modern engineers.”

“Well, it's certainly not an ancestor of anything we're using today,” Sherlock agrees as he examines the dials and valves. He swipes a finger around a copper rim that surrounds an aged clock-face.

“What do you know about H.G. Wells?”

“A moderately intelligent _woman_  if one only glances at the handwriting on the original manuscripts.”

“Quite. Well, without boring you with the full history- this invention of Wells has come back under our care after a rather disastrous series of mishaps in America. It's a temporal consciousness transfer engine."

Sherlock stares at his brother, who waits for this announcement to land. Mycroft doesn’t joke like this. He toys with Sherlock, he orchestrates games and lessons- but he doesn’t make up outlandish lies.

“A time machine?” Sherlock asks. It’s patently ridiculous and it feels foolish to even speak the words, but Mycroft nods at him.

“The Engine has a psychometric effect, not a physical one. It was originally designed by Wells to allow her to inhabit a body in the past, specifically for twenty- two hours and nineteen minutes. It has since been stolen and tampered with, damaged, and restored. Despite those repairs, we think the longest it can function now is four hours and six minutes.”

“And I assume you want me to revise some activity of mine in our efforts to apprehend Moriarty, yet again?” guesses Sherlock.

“No. Whatever happened, must be preserved,” Mycroft asserts with utter certainty. “However, I think it may be effective to use for reconnaissance. We've discovered an intriguing pattern in the accounts given by several of his captured associates, but namely our mutual acquaintance, Mary Morstan.”

“A pattern?”

“Several unexplained losses of consciousness on conspicuous dates, all lasting exactly four hours and six minutes,” he says, thrusting a handful of paperwork at him. It’s the transcript of a debriefing, with several sections of text highlighted that specify dates and rough times. The day after he returned to London jumps out at him, as does the morning of the day he was shot. The most recent is this past Christmas, but as Mycroft knew first hand that event could be explained, it was struck through with pen.

“And your theory was time travel over narcolepsy because?”

“The importing of The Engine was nearly compromised by known agents of Moriarty.”

Eager to get on with what will certainly be a tasking request, Sherlock extrapolates, “So you think someone will time travel into her personal history and have access to him?”

“ _You_ will, eventually. But I was rather hoping we'd be able to do a test drive in your own shoes first. Now tell me, do you remember suffering any peculiar losses of consciousness- since the end of your days as an addict, of course. Maybe a time when you have no memory of attending events but things didn't seem to come to a standstill either?”

Sherlock sneers, but mentally files backward, starting with several instances during the time he spent abroad- in unspeakable pain that was barely relieved by the occasional lapse of wakefulness. When he rolls through his memories of that time he _wishes_  he might have been spared four hours of torment at some point, but nothing seems to fit the bill. Not that he'd want to revisit it now, to test the theory. If he could revisit absolutely anything he'd want another mundane afternoon of watching John mutter at his laptop. Then it occurs to him.

“January 29th, 2010. While working on the Jefferson Hope serial killings I presumed I had fallen asleep on the sofa and was subsequently drugged and abducted. I came to approximately four hours later, in a taxi, on my way to be talked to death.”

“How did you never mention this?”

“That theory of events was inconsistent with my later observations. Apparently I had been lucid enough to interact with others. I assumed I had...deleted it.”

“The day we first met John and learned the name Moriarty, how fitting,” Mycroft muses.

Sherlock pauses, before he breathes, “Mycroft I could change everything.”

“You really couldn't,” Mycroft warns him, but Sherlock presses the shade of uncertainty with a glare. Mycroft sighs. “When The Engine was stable- and we're uncertain that it is now, after the damage- reports of its use indicate that no matter what the operator does in the past, the universe seems to have means of course correction. What I’m asking you to do today is strictly for data, and that is the most that ever _should_  be done with The Engine.” Mycroft gives a long pause while he observes the flicker of a different meaning in Sherlock's face. He continues, softly- “Even if you could change the course of the past five years- you would miss them, and arrive back to this date. I don't think you'd want that.”

He knows what Mycroft means by this. If he was somehow able to ensnare Moriarty in time for dinner with John in the past- drop to his knees and profess the belief they were destined to be side by side in all futures- and John didn't think he was insane, he would lose so many first moments. Possibly many last moments. He could miss the entire thing.

“And if I don’t want to go at all?” asks Sherlock. It might be better not to risk upsetting history, in his or anyone’s past. “If you’ve managed to get this much out of interrogation there must be other leads to pick up,” he points out.

“Do you mean to tell me you’re not the least bit curious what you might have missed on that particular evening, Sherlock Holmes?” Mycroft replies wryly. That does it.

“I’m only agreeing to this specific trip,” Sherlock says, beginning to loosen his scarf and take off his coat. “To confirm the operation of The Engine,” he rationalizes. Considering the date in mind, if nothing else- he can unpack and tidy up the flat to make a good impression with John.

When Sherlock is finally hooked up to The Engine, and all the settings have been put in order for the trip, Mycroft gives him a final warning before pulling the switch himself. “Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Or rather, You wouldn't do.”

Sherlock arrives into the past with a gasp. His lungs have two years less smoking damage, and are securely caged by ribs that have never known the wrong end of a crowbar. He must have forgotten that it was easier to breathe before those things. Around him the flat is empty, and only half decorated. It seems a possibility that all he has to do is lay back and await kidnapping- which might account for the unfamiliar tread on the staircase.

An extra thud on each step. The cane! John, but not _his_  John, he realizes. John had a cane he used to assist a limp the day they met- and it had never appeared again after their investigation of the Pink Lady. Sherlock thought John had simply taken heed of the psychosomatic diagnosis and been sensible enough to discard it, since he would now be assisting Sherlock's vigorous lifestyle, but apparently that wasn't the case. He had also formerly assumed that John must have seen Sherlock's abduction, and arrived to his rescue, but that wasn't for hours still. He was about to uncover a missing piece of their early partnership that he never knew existed.

“You asked me to come. I’m assuming it’s important,” John asks, once he's already made a point of disapproving the of abuse of nicotine patches Sherlock is exhibiting.

Sherlock already knows the killer they're seeking is the cabbie, so he may as well set the ball rolling and tease Hope out into the open. He must have arrived in the back of that cab by someone's initiative, after all.

He notices John's uncertain hovering. Has he already behaved incorrectly?

“What's wrong?”

“Just met a friend of yours,” he replies while peering out the window down to the street.

“A friend?” _John, you're the only friend I've ever had and you haven't even half realized that yet_.

“An enemy.”

“Oh,” Not Moriarty. It's not possible, he won't even know that name for hours yet. “Which one?”

“Your arch-enemy, according to him. Do people _have_  arch-enemies?”

Oh Mycroft, the self important git. John never told him he'd been vetted by Mycroft. Well, he supposes he must have, or was telling him now, but obviously this was the first he was hearing of it. He remembers John's surprise later that night to discover they were brothers, and allows John's assumptions to go undisturbed.

“Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take it?”

“No.” _My immovable John._ No wonder Mycroft took a shine to him.

“Pity,” says Sherlock, knowing that antagonizing Mycroft by wasting his time and resources would soon become one of their favorite games. “We could have split the fee. Think it through next time.”

With consideration Sherlock thinks it's possible that if he arranges a stake-out he might catch a better glimpse of Moriarty behind the curtain of this first crime. Despite Mycroft's assertion whatever has happened must happen again, he still can't fight the feeling that if he could instigate any change, the early collapse of Moriarty's web would be worth the effort.  At the very least, running a stake-out will give him the opportunity to train up his new assistant, and spend some of the evening in pleasing company.

John texts the cabbie via Jennifer Wilson's phone, as directed. “- I must have blacked out- Twenty-two Northumberland Street- Please come,” Sherlock improvises, drawing inspiration from his surreal reality.

“You blacked out?” John frets, ever the doctor.

 _Yes_. “What? No. No!” He admonishes himself for his choice of fiction. It'd be a shame to give John the impression he's been a user this early on. That's the sort of thing you tell a person carefully, and after more than forty-eight hours of acquaintanceship, at least.

Sherlock leaps up from the couch and resumes the role of a stranger, but watches John with ease of familiarity. This John is so uncertain of Sherlock, still an unknown quantity to him, of course. They are both raw ore, yet to be refined or shaped by their time together, but the magnetism is there. It had always been like this, their easy give and take, he can see that. Spinning his wheels with John (who is almost as pushy as he is) puts him at his best. When there is crime to be solved Sherlock engages with the puzzle while John’s pragmatism steers them toward the goal, not just the answer. Sherlock works through the case to John, realizing this is his recruitment day, and tries to set the bar. If he gets carried away by this opportunity, so be it. He's aware of himself showboating a bit for the man, and catches himself nearly flirting when he invites John along.

“Problem?” he asks when he notices the Watson trademarked Superficial Smile on his face.

“Yeah, Sergeant Donovan,” John mentions, spoiling the moment.

“What about her?”

“She said you get off on this. You enjoy it.”

Sherlock grins, knowing he won’t be alone on that count anymore. “And I said ‘dangerous’, and here you are.”

On their way he tries to dial it back and re-inhabit the aloof persona he'd been so practiced with before meeting John. If he's too forward he could offend the carefully cultivated distance between them and throw the whole future-flatmate deal into jeopardy. Losing that version of time would be unacceptable. What’s most important is to get through the evening, behave as he ought in order to fulfill the time-line, and if he so happens to pick up any new information, it's a bonus.

They come up on Angelo's- John still clunking along with his cane, unaware that he isn't keeping speed with the Future John Sherlock is accustomed to. _We'll have to do something about that_ , he thinks.

“You're unbelievable,” John mutters when he joins Sherlock on the far side of a busy intersection they’ve just dashed through. _As you're very fond of telling me._

“Hungry?” He ushers John into the restaurant, and reminds himself that this is strictly reconnaissance.

“Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Keep your eyes on it,” he tells John, once they're seated in position for the stake out. He will endeavor to keep it business.

“He isn’t just gonna ring the doorbell, though, is he? He’d need to be mad.”

“He _has_ killed four people.”

Angelo himself hurries up to the table to welcome Sherlock, his eyes quickly darting from Sherlock to John and back again. Sherlock expects he must be looking uncommonly fond for 5-years-ago-Sherlock and attempts to mask the expression.

“Sherlock! Anything on the menu, whatever you want, free- on the house, for you _and_  your date,” says Angelo.

_Damnit._  Sherlock tries to steamroll over the comment, “Do you want to eat?”

“I’m not his date.” _Too late._

Sherlock is terse and stares daggers at Angelo, but when he returns with a moment later with a candle he still has the gall to give them a thumbs-up. _And people think I'm incapable of reading social cues_ , Sherlock thinks uncharitably.

Behind the menu John reads through an assortment of dishes he doesn't know will be some of his favorite foods. That’s Sherlock’s interpretation at any rate. It’s possible that this impression is colored by Sherlock’s fond observations, as they inspire charming memories of John that _he_ favors. While reading the menu John considers a gnocchi soup that he accidentally fills up on anytime he orders it, stuffed artichokes he will disastrously attempt to recreate, and a curried dish that even Sherlock has never managed to identify (he might have been too flustered by the offer of a shared fork, in retrospect.) Blessedly, John does not waste any more time trying to convince Sherlock to eat, and instead gripes about the comparative blandness of English food, after years abroad. Sherlock can’t think of how to agree on this point while not giving John the anachronistic impression he’s recently been traipsing around the Himalayas.

He watches John, who is sat across from him looking comfortable, hopeful, and curious. He’s wearing one of his most wretched jumpers, but in Sherlock’s book the more unassuming- the better. Not long after the night at the pool, when Sherlock’s fascination with John goes full tilt and he’s calling in favors in exchange for birth records- this is the jumper he’ll sneak from John’s laundry. Even Sherlock’s not sure what his intentions are when he ferrets it away. He takes it out periodically when John’s out and there’s nothing on. He smells it, measures it, researches its manufacture, drapes it on John’s armchair and sits across from it- willing it to divulge any information it might have. Somehow he resists the temptation to take it to bed with him, although he thinks about it on several occasions. He tries it on only once, just before he returns it. He’s careful not to bend his elbows too vigorously or tug at the hem and give himself away. It wouldn’t do to upset the way it fit John.

Sherlock sees the reflection of his own face over John’s shoulder, now, and is reminded of this. He supposes with use of The Engine he could try on John, if he wanted. Remembering the startling difference in visiting his past-self’s lung capacity, he tries to imagine the disorientation of existing in John’s skin. He hasn’t been in a body that height since he was thirteen, or trained it to dismiss it’s various appetites. That would be distracting. Would he struggle with a stiffened shoulder? With a glance at John’s neat and manageable hair he decides he could at least reclaim time lost to ‘proper’ nutrition by skimping on grooming.

After John places his order, he folds his hands neatly on the tabletop like this is an interview. Sherlock supposes it is, for both of them. “So this is what you do then. Your consulting work. Sitting in restaurants eating for free at the grace of a grateful public while you scope out criminals?”

“As I said, whenever Scotland Yard is out of their depth.”

“Private work too though, like Angelo,” John follows up, still sussing out the reliability of other half of the rent.

“That's the part that pays the bills,” he assures him. He's always been glad of John's level-headed awareness of practical matters. It leaves him free to his own brain-work.

“Good. It was good timing. Meeting you. The flat share. Thank you,” John says slowly. Sherlock is struck for a moment by the layers of gratitude even John isn't aware of, and furthermore isn't aware Sherlock is aware of. He knows all about the unregistered gun and the slow recovery from isolation they are both embarking on.

“Me too,” Sherlock says simply, with as understated a smile as he can muster. “I was lo-” He bites his tongue. _You can't say ‘lonely’. We didn't... still don't know how to talk like that. God, if we had-_  but he can't set a precedent his past self can't live up to. He coughs over his stutter and starts again. “I was looking for a flatmate who wouldn't impede my work but you, Doctor Watson- may actually be of assistance.”

“I should have brought my CV,” John jokes.

“As we're at a stake-out I think we can dispense with the traditional in this interview,” smirks Sherlock.

“Hah, yes. 'Where do you see yourself in five years?' and all that rubbish.”

_Oh, John._

“You’ve probably already worked out where I grew up by my shirtsleeves, and what kind of novels I read by the way I cross the street, anyway.”

“Mmm no. Originally Durham by the teeth. True Crime, by the choice of adjectives, and flatmate.” It’s all he can do to keep from winking.

“Brilliant,” says John with a flashing smile.

John's plate arrives, a pancetta laden dish that Sherlock would ordinarily help himself to a bite of- but sharply reminds himself to leave be. They simply aren't that comfortable yet. He promises himself he'll take John back to Angelo's as soon as possible. Maybe even sit him in this same seat, and tell him how once upon a time he-

“People don’t have arch-enemies,” John interrupts his thoughts. Sherlock nearly laughs. This is a John who's never been strapped to semtex, witnessed a forced fake suicide, or married his own would-be assassin.

“I’m sorry?” Sherlock says, trying to put the future far out of mind.

“In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life. Doesn't happen.”

“Doesn't it? Sounds a bit dull.” If he’d been asked, John would probably also confirm that there aren't supposed to be awkward time traveling evenings with the love of your life on the day you met, in real life.

“So who did I meet?” asks John reasonably.

Sherlock imagines an anonymous first meeting with Mycroft would be unsettling, and almost takes mercy on him. He decides that if John can work out 'Brother' on his own it may not affect the future at all. A little Socratic method won’t go amiss in a consulting detective’s arsenal. “What do real people have, then, in their ‘real lives’?” Sherlock asks, leading him.

John nods at him and rattles through, “Friends, people they know, people they like, people they don’t like,” he looks down in thought and Sherlock expects a litany of family members before John continues, “Girlfriends, boyfriends...”

“Yes, well, as I was saying – dull.” Sherlock decides John won't guess Mycroft is his brother after all and keeps his eyes fixed on the address across the street.

“You don’t have a girlfriend, then?”

Sherlock freezes, still staring out the window. “Girlfriend? No, not really my area,” he says, borrowing a phrase from John, that he now realizes might be something John adopted from _him_  this evening. A small paradox. He’s somewhat shocked John ever thought Sherlock being involved with a woman was a legitimate possibility now that he’s said this.

“Oh, right,” John says, still watching intently. “D’you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way.”

“I know it’s fine,” he says with a more prickly attitude than he intends, caught off guard. He clings to a neutral expression and stares back at John's smile.

“So you’ve got a boyfriend then?”

“No,” he says, still staring back warily. John's still smiling, and for a moment he has a wild bout of deja vu, standing in the kitchen at Baker Street with a cup of eyeball tea in hand, blankly processing factors of John he'd never considered before. It's obvious he has a blind spot as wide as The Channel when it comes to John, and without his input Sherlock is often rudderless. He thinks, _You'd tell me wouldn’t you?_

“Right. Okay. You’re unattached. Like me. Fine.” John licks his lips before returning to his plate.

Sherlock makes a good show of indifference at first, but when he sees his own slightly panicked face reflected in the window he replays it in his head again. _John, what are you saying?_  He was clearly scoping out Sherlock’s romantic life, when they most definitely never talked about this kind of thing... But they did, apparently. What would he have said five years ago?Sherlock tries to remember. What would the man who'd never been in love, and got 13 emails a day from cheated spouses say? He realizes his future-past self won’t know any better when he reemerged in a few hours, and if he’s too receptive now John will just get the cold splash of oblivious disinterest upon his return. This is the kind of thing that Mycroft was warning him about. He fakes sincere eye contact, and decides to head John off with a cliché.

“John, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any-”

But John interrupts him, “No,” he shakes his head, before clarifying, “No, I’m not asking. No. I’m just saying, it’s _all_  fine.”

Sherlock is simultaneously sunken-hearted and hopeful. He may have put too fine a point on it at the moment, but he prays that deep down John will hold on to the notion that when The Work is no longer Sherlock's only priority, there could be room for more. “Good. Thank you,” he says.

If this is what has always happened then it's really for the best, after all. He looks back out the window and notices a taxi stopped at the address with a slim faced dark haired man in the back. A thought glimmers into his head. Wouldn't it be just the tidiest little trick if Moriarty was along for the ride?

 

***

 

When they eventually catch up to the taxi it is most definitely not Moriarty or a victim in the passengers seat. With nearly an hour left in Sherlock's visit to the past, he decides to let the cabbie go and come back to him on his own time. He wasn't abducted with John, after all, he needs to put him out of the way for the moment so he can follow along on his own, like he's meant to. Taking risks with the future by wild-goose-chasing Moriarty could do more damage than he knows. He's panting on the pavement, watching the cab pull away, hoping it's the right choice when John steps up to him.

“Basically just a cab that happened to slow down.”

“Basically.”

“Not the murderer.”

“Not the murderer,” _As far as we ought to know_ , “-no.”

“Wrong country; good alibi.”

“As they go.”

John reaches out for his hand, “Where did you get this?” he asks, grabbing the ID Sherlock had just flashed to pull over the taxi. “Detective Inspector Lestrade?

“Yeah. I pickpocket him when he’s annoying. You can keep that one, I’ve got plenty at the flat,” he offers, noticing John's laughter. “What?”

“Nothing, just- 'Welcome to London',” John laughs.

Sherlock chuckles, though he's suddenly jealous he missed this the first time around. It’s unacceptable that any moment of gleeful conspiracy between them was stolen by what is ultimately a diagnostic run of equipment. When he turns his head he notices the cab pointing them out to a police officer and nods to John, who is smiling fiendishly and come all this way without his cane .“Got your breath back?”

“Ready when you are”

Sherlock fires off a text to Angelo as they run.

They jog up to 221B again and Sherlock misses a beat waiting for John to open the door. Of course he hasn’t any keys yet. He pushes past to do the honors, already overheated from running but now abruptly washed over with the memory of every narrow escape and scrappy victory that ever ended in this vestibule. His coat is suddenly stifling the brilliance he feels, so he sheds it and staggers against the wall, waiting, allowing the thrill to do whatever it wants to naturally do. John lands beside him, threatening to slide down the wall as well.

“Okay, that was ridiculous, that was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done,” he pants.

“And you invaded Afghanistan.”

John’s laugh is high and cracking, like it’s been ages since his voice has done something so frivolous. When he joins in, Sherlock can’t help but think of birds, tittering, fluttering the dust from their wings, which only makes him feel more ludicrous. Despite it, he knows this is the moment-right here, where John is seduced by the rush.

“That wasn’t just me,” reasons John. “Why aren’t we back at the restaurant?”

Sherlock waves his hand, still breathless and undecided what to say to separate them so he can be kidnapped (not that he wants to leave behind this moment. Ever. ) He’s not sure if he ought to curse himself or Mycroft for missing this when it happened properly. _Did something happen here? We were perfect. If I’d not been absent, if I'd know this had happened, if I'd heard his laugh here and seen his face, and not had it stolen from me by the black-out, would I have gotten so horribly in my own way?_  This is what he wants back most, coming back home together, in triumph. He could give up all the other possibilities just to have it again.

“Oh, they can keep an eye out. It was a long shot anyway,” he admits. There was little basis in the hope they’d glimpse Moriarty, anyway.

“So what were we doing there?”

“Oh, just passing the time. And proving a point,” he adds turning to look at John, who stops. He hasn’t yet caught on to what a transformative moment this is.

“What point?”

“You,” Sherlock breathes, before calling out to inform Mrs Hudson John will indeed be moving in.

“Says who?” John asks, still unaware that bossing each other around is the only way he and Sherlock ever get anything done.

“Says the man at the door.” _And your face; the light back in your eyes and the twist of your grin when I speak. Your whole body spurred on by thirst for the unpredictable_.

Sherlock smiles and watches him answer the knock in disbelief. John takes the cane from Angelo, finally realizing the miraculous end of his need for the blasted thing. With his jaw dropped, he shoots a look at Sherlock (now grinning a bit madly) before muttering his thanks and closing the door again. Before Sherlock has a chance to convince John to stay put and excuse himself, Mrs Hudson rushes up to him, upset by something gone wrong upstairs.

Sherlock glances at his watch before he rushes up the stairs with John close behind. Whatever this is had better be resolved before his window to the past closes, as he’s due to find himself in the back of a serial killer’s taxi in less than half an hour.

He bursts into the living room to find Lestrade and several other officers scouring the flat, looking for the evidence he’d collected earlier and failed to report because of his little temporal maneuver. Not that he would have reported it anyway, but not being metaphysically capable of declaring evidence is a hell of an excuse, he thinks. _These people need to leave_ , they need to leave so he can go be foiled by his own hubris, saved by John, and then live the most important years of his life.

“It’s a drugs bust,” Lestrade claims while he huffs.

“Seriously?” John pipes in. “This guy, a junkie! Have you met him?!”

Sherlock’s gut plummets. He could die. He could just die. He could get in the cab and demand immediately to take a pill, he’s so humiliated. There’s been years to consider it and even without ever reading the write-up on the scene he is sure Moriarty provides two poison pills tonight. At this point, Sherlock and Hope are nothing but loose ends to tie before they can become a liability. Had John not stepped in, Sherlock would never have become a vulnerability for him either. Now he’s breaking off the first piece of John’s trust, and knows it won’t be the last. This John- fresh and unbetrayed, can’t imagine the worst of him.

“- I’m pretty sure you could search this flat all day, you wouldn’t find anything you could call recreational,” John jokes, still starry-eyed by the chase and the (now redundant) cane.

“John, you probably want to shut up now,” begs Sherlock, stepping closer to him and trying to steer the conversation. He couldn’t bear to have Lestrade volunteer the story of how he first found Sherlock; strung out and siren chasing, trying to prove he was still in control of his chemical free-fall. He imagines John will hear it one day, but please, not here, when they’ve just met. Not in front of him.

“Yeah, but come on-” John counters feebly. Sherlock stares down at him, waiting for him to turn away. John could leave right now and he wouldn’t be surprised.

“No.”

“What?”

“You?” John says with a tilt of his head. He’s morbidly fascinated despite himself, and doesn’t waver.

“Shut up!” blurts Sherlock- but the disbelief he’s surprised by now is his own. John’s eyes hold on to Sherlock’s like he is worth saving.

Secure in the understanding John hasn’t been scared off, Sherlock turns back to the infestation of police in his flat, and clashes with officers until Lestrade mentions something Sherlock never resolved.

“We’ve found Rachel.”

“Who is she?” asked Sherlock. When he read John’s blog of the case after the fact he never said anything about the name that was painstakingly scratched into the floorboards.

“Jennifer Wilson’s only daughter.”

Sherlock shuts down Anderson’s interruptions, still trying to work out the connection. Is this the final piece of information between him and taxi he needs to find himself in the back of in- he checks his watch- ten minutes?

“She’s been dead for fourteen years. Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago.”

“No, that’s ... that’s not right. How-” _does that get me to the cabbie?_  he stops himself from wondering out loud. “Why would she do that?”

John tries to riddle out the possibility of emotional manipulation by the killer, but it’s not right. This was a clever woman. It’s not sentiment, it’s a clue. When he realizes that it’s a password to the phone she planted on the killer, the phone Sherlock would later keep as a souvenir of this night, he instructs John to monitor the GPS. This is how it falls into place, he realizes, only minutes away from the end of his trip into the past. He gets the text COME WITH ME just as he notices the unassuming Jeffrey Hope standing just outside the hallway door.

“Sherlock, you okay?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I-I’m fine.”

“I’ll try it again.”

“Good idea.”

“Where are you going?”

“Won’t be long.” Just a few years.

His eyes open again in his own time, and he feels a bit short of breath. He’s still strapped down and can’t move his neck to look but he can hear Mycroft checking in with whomever must have sat with his unconscious body the past few hours.

“Anything to be worried about?”

“No sir, Just acceptable variation in respiration and heart rate.”

Hands begin to work over the buckles he can’t reach for himself. Several telemetry leads are peeled away with little care.

“Thank you, you may go.”

Sherlock sits up and twists the stiffness out of his neck, “That was unsettling,” he admits.

“Welcome back. I assume you managed to behave yourself?”

“Obviously.”

“Well,” declares Mycroft, flopping a packet and pen into his lap, “We’re not running this like The Secret Service, there will be paperwork. I’ll need you to fill out this report; everyone you interacted with, every place you went, any objects you may have displaced, and any other pertinent observations.”

“Can’t I turn in my homework tomorrow? I haven’t eaten since 2010,” Sherlock says, with a mock frown.

“You have twelve hours,” says Mycroft, roughly heaping Sherlock’s jacket onto his lap as well. “Starting now.”

In his haste, Sherlock is half way down the corridor and out before he’s got himself buttoned in properly. Automatically, his hands plunge into his pockets and he thinks to check his phone. Three missed calls, ten texts (mostly John), and a picture message all appear suddenly as he exits the building and leaves the radius of the signal-damper on the complex. He calls back and John answers on the first ring.

“Sherlock! Where’ve you been? They finally got past the decoy relay on the video and got a name to go with one of the three IPs,” John explains. It’s the break they’ve been waiting for, something he would have preferred to have know about immediately. it’s probably a blessing The Engine no longer runs a twenty two hour trip, or all kinds of havoc could occur while he was unable to respond.

“Let me guess; when police arrived he was dead by apparent suicide,” Sherlock says, expecting a dead-end.

“Of course. I texted you the address and I’ve got notes, but we couldn't get a hold of you and Bradstreet wouldn’t hold the scene any longer. They already sent the body to the morgue-”

“-which will be closed by the time I make it across town,” Sherlock sighs, glancing at his watch again.

“Sorry,” he can nearly hear John’s wince through the phone. “Should I just go back to my flat, or..”

“Not your fault. Gives us a chance to regroup. We could touch base over dinner?”

“God yes, I could eat a cow. Where? And where have you been by the way?”

Sherlock pauses, wondering if he could tell John over the phone (if at all), and concludes that a glass of wine might make him a little more receptive if he’s even going to think of broaching the subject. “Angelo’s. I should be twenty minutes,” he announces, and hangs up.

From the pavement outside the restaurant, Sherlock can see that John beat him here. He’s seated in the window, and by some power (seasonal, not cosmic, Sherlock assures himself) wearing the same wretched jumper Sherlock had just left him in (his second warmest for the weather, but decidedly un-festive, for the holiday hangover.) Sherlock sweeps into the restaurant and joins him at the table, careful to fold his papers from Mycroft out of sight as he takes off his coat.

“Already put in an order, so you’re stuck with either the carbonara or the stuffed shells,” John informs him. It’s one of his oldest tricks, to offer up options instead of allowing Sherlock’s distraction and indecision to keep him hungry.

“Mmm, shells are yours then, I’ve had the strangest craving,” he says, remembering the tempting plate that neither of them managed to fully enjoy before they dashed off.

“It looked pretty straight forward to me- the scene, execution staged as a suicide, by the voiding,” John begins. He pulls out his phone and shows the picture he’d already sent by text. “But their spatter guy wasn’t on site, and my word’s not exactly golden with His Highness Bradstreet,” he concludes sarcastically.

“Idiot,” Sherlock huffs in agreement. “We’ll do some checking in tomorrow, then.”

“Right. Did you learn anything new, where ever you were at?”

“When,” Sherlock corrects, absently. John takes it as a question.

“This afternoon! When you disappeared in the middle of investigating the return of your arch enemy!” John exclaims, somehow managing to contain his indignation before actually yelling.  _If John People-Don’t-Have-Arch-Enemies Watson could hear him now,_  Sherlock thinks.

“I was at the complex with Mycroft, they’ve had a dead-zone protocol for mobile communication since the video,” he answers truthfully. It’s immaterial that even if his mobile had received John’s messages he wasn’t there to answer. Not really.

“What’d he want?”

“He’s preparing for some inquiries,” Sherlock volunteers, though he’s made up his mind not to tell John over dinner about The Engine, after all. He has other priorities. “Sensitive communication. With her.” He knows if he ties it back to Mary, whose past was after all the eventual purpose of today’s exercise, John will be content to let it rest with him. He’d all but washed his hands when they’d brought her in with the contents of the real AGRA drive. John gives a curt nod, and quickly shifts back into an amiable smile as Angelo approaches.

“Gentlemen,” he croons, arriving with a bottle of wine and clapping a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “I’ve been missing you. Not the same sending you take-away while you were recovering.”

Sherlock grins uncomfortably. He’d forgotten that having an acquaintance shot was not a routine matter for most Londoners, and Angelo would most definitely feel the need to make a fuss. With a glance, John jumps in for him. “Thank you. Yeah, we’re keeping it low-key tonight.”

“Very good. Well, a little red wine is good for the heart,” Angelo says while pouring out, but making no mention of candles before he turns away again.

John drinks and then smiles expectantly at him, and Sherlock tilts his head. “It’s nice. Being in an old place. Like looking at old photographs, where you see just the good bits. Lots of good bits here.” With a wine filled hum, Sherlock agrees. “You’re thinking very loudly tonight, Sherlock.”

“This is... I have something to ask. And I wouldn’t-” he starts, staring at an unremarkable spot on the table cloth while John looks on encouragingly, brow raised and open. “I don’t ask for much.”

“Hah, Sherlock-”

“Please, I don’t. Not the important things, because you offer before I know any better.” He can’t stop himself from swallowing thickly. “But this is something I have to ask you or it won’t be right.”

“Am I about to find out you’re leaving again?” John asks in a hushed worry, leaning in to scrutinize any tell Sherlock might be exhibiting.

“The opposite!” Sherlock’s hand flies across the table top, an inch short from John’s before he stops, though John doesn’t flinch at all. “I intend to stay. And I want you to as well. With me. I want you to move back in.”

John’s mouth twitches, unreadable. “You don’t need my help with the rent.”

“Never did.”

John laughs, and Sherlock is sure it’s because he’d guessed ages ago that his real problem was remembering to write a cheque, not the ability to back it with funds. It’s then that their food arrives.

“For him,” John directs the waiter, eagerly accepting his dish second and digging in like he’s been holding back all week. Sherlock sits, hungrily shoving around his pasta on the plate but too worried that the interruption has derailed his request to take a bite. John slows, noticing Sherlock.  “I remember sitting right here-”

“Trying to decide the same thing?” Sherlock suggests.

“No,” John said, smiling warmly. “My mind was already made up, actually. Like now.” Sherlock stares back, suddenly blanking on what all this lead up from John means. “About a month ago, before Christmas, you were playing violin non stop. Do you remember?”

Sherlock nods. “Composing, yes.” It had taken most of autumn to build up the stamina to play for hours on end again. After leaving the hospital he refused all painkillers, and though the ache of his healing chest was no longer disruptive to things like roaming the city, he’d taken for granted the ability to suspend his arms all afternoon. Only this past week has he finished the piece.

“Yeah, every time I came to check in on you, there you were, working at finishing this piece. And one day I brought fish and chips lunch, and you paused. Said it was too early to eat, then played your piece the whole way through, no stopping. Complete. And you turned to me when you put your bow down, and said everything was going to be all right again, soon. Even if it didn’t look like it. Because we hadn’t come this far to be kept from <i>our</i> life at Baker Street,” John says emphatically, “-but sometimes one has to leave to come back.”

Sherlock has no recollection of this, and it sounds remarkably self-aware and optimistic for how much denial he had been imposing on himself at the time. The detail about the violin piece, only recently completed-

“And I thought that was a bit odd, because I crashed at the flat now and again, but I wasn’t staying, really. And then I realized what I wanted at the end of all this. Later that evening, you were sawing away again, maybe you’d thrown out the end of your composition, I don’t know. It seemed half done again.”

 _The Engine?_. Was it possible he was going to use it again to reassure John?

“And you asked me to go and take Mary back, for my safety. And I knew you wouldn’t ask for a thing that big otherwise. Well, you went away and came back, and now I want to come home too. Tonight if you don’t mind. S’closer anyway.”

Sherlock’s fork clatters to the table, and he tries valiantly to word the appropriate response, but all that comes out is “Fine.”

John is benevolent in the face of his underwhelming reply, as only a Sherlock Expert could be. “Right. I’ll just let you process then,” he chuckles, returning to his meal.

Eventually Sherlock tucks in, while John goes back to describing the crime scene from earlier. Contrasted with the untrained John of Five-Years/Two-Hours ago he can’t help but feel proud. Brilliant and perceptive in ways Sherlock can never anticipate, John has already worked out a theory for finding the other two of the trio. They agree that between appointments at MI 6 tomorrow they’ll visit the morgue and then set in motion plans to catch the remaining culprits alive. They have a course laid out and a case to solve, and Sherlock thinks it could be enough.

On the short walk back to Baker Street, Sherlock suggests that he could arrange for John’s belongings to be packed and brought over, if it was any help, as he once spared a mover from accusations of embezzlement.

“You’ve got a man for everything, haven’t you?” John laughs in amusement.

“Almost. I don’t have a dedicated pastry chef yet,” Sherlock teases back.

“I could learn to bake. I’d better earn my keep, after all you’ve done.”

“I wouldn’t ask for anything in return.”

“No. That’s good ‘cause baking’s not really my area.”

“Mine either. How did we end up on Baker Street?” Sherlock jests, as they finally reach the door and he lets them in. The climb the stairs to the first floor and John falters before continuing up to his old, mostly empty room. “Why don’t we-” he doesn't finish, isn’t sure what to suggest. He has John home and he isn’t sure where to go from there. If there’s anywhere else he’s permitted.

“Tea, then?” John heads to the kitchen after a confirming nod.

Thinking of the shabby accommodations upstairs, Sherlock isn’t entirely sure where fresh linens have got to these days. A great many sheets get sacrificed to science under his watch, and most of his towels and blankets go directly from laundry to use and back again without John living there this past year. He stands in the middle of the sitting room, a bit lost until John joins him, waiting for the kettle.

“You may have to rough it tonight. Or I could, if you want the made bed. I don’t mind, I didn’t think ahead,” he says.

“Okay,” John agrees, with a furtive expression. He remains standing close with his eyes narrowed, and Sherlock isn’t sure why they haven’t taken their seats yet. The quiet, close presence of him isn’t unwelcome, but it gives Sherlock the feeling he’s being read. This must be what it’s like on the other end of his gaze, he thinks.

“Okay,” he repeats, without moving to make any arrangements. Sherlock doesn't even shift his feet, he just holds eye contact with John, who has managed to come this far at his request.

“I know you won’t ask, so I’m offering,” John explains, slowly reaching with one hand to wrap his fingers around Sherlock’s neck and reel him in. He kisses him gently, then pulls back, hand lingering at Sherlock’s nape, where a blush begins to creep. “I’ll take your bed, and you could join me.”

Though his lips are parted in question, Sherlock finds himself speechless. John has met him halfway and then thrown out a line for Sherlock to pull across the rest of the distance. He makes a few false starts of “I-” and “You-” without getting anywhere, and finally settles for leaning back in to kiss him again. His fingers find themselves gripping into the miserable jumper he’d obsessed over, and now he’s glad he never took it to bed with him because it all would have been empty. It’s the quality of John that binds together the sum of his parts that he’s loved and tried to define for all these years, and now that it’s swarming around him available to touch he knows he was foolish to try.

“Is this all right, then?” John asks when they break apart “Can it be like this? I’d like it to be like this, but mostly I just want to be _with you_.” He gives Sherlock’s body a little squeeze against his.

“Me too. Like this,” manages Sherlock, still straining to articulate. He hopes John can interpret, because he himself had struggled so long with this understanding.

“Because you love me,” John supplies, kissing him again, then settling his chin on Sherlock’s collar bone so his lips keep contact with his neck and laugh against it when Sherlock finally realizes.

“And you love me too?”

“Madly,” John agrees, taking him by the hand and beginning to drag him to and through the kitchen. “I don’t want tea anymore, do you?”

“Not right now,” says Sherlock trailing behind. John shuts off the kettle and spins on the spot to trap him against the counter. Hips slide together and hands frame Sherlock’s face, thumbs softly brushing back and forth along his cheekbones.

“So, I just want us to be on the same page, because I think we’ve spent enough time in different bloody _libraries_ ,” John declares to Sherlock’s widened eyes. “I’m moving back in, we’re together, and God help me, I’m going to take you to bed because we’re in love, and I don’t want to spend another five minutes, let alone another five _years_  without you knowing I feel as deeply about you as it’s possible to,” he says, practically trembling. “Which is frighteningly, unadvisedly, infinitely deep.”

Then Sherlock finally knows the word that means all of that longing, frenzied devotion, and bone-deep certainty to him, and makes sure to repeat it all night.

_“John.”_

Sherlock wakes up near dawn, hoping that if he shows up early by four hours and six minutes (give or take) Mycroft will be more amenable to the favor he’s asking in return for agreeing to do the investigations into Mary’s communication with Moriarty. He leaves a note that he’ll be incommunicado with Mycroft again, and they’ll visit the morgue around eleven. It’s a struggle to leave John sleeping in their shared bed without a word, but he’s uncertain what he’d say if they spoke just now.

***

_“Sherlock. I’ve got fish and chips.”_

_He grimaces, as it’s barely eight in the morning to his thinking. “It’s too early to eat.”_

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [ art by me, stitchlock on tumblr](http://stitchlock.tumblr.com/post/86712401857/i-drew-myself-a-time-travelling-sherlock-to)


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